Do Not Buy! I bought this book thinking I could learn how to create business spreadsheets in Excel (and learn the various excel operations necessary to analyse statements & financial data). However, this book is completely useless there! It is confusing to the learner, and does not come with any spreadsheet templates/software to assist. Complete waste of money! DO NOT BUY!
I've taught both MBA and Master's in Management classes online and physically at MIT, Harvard (GE Crotonville) and Phoenix State University. There are a group of about 3-5 texts that are now the most popular for graduate Quantitative Analysis (QA). These include the Swift text (most popular in Europe) at from $40 to $80 US (Quantitative Methods: For Business, Management and Finance), the Render Quantitative Analysis for Management text (Quantitative Analysis for Management (11th Edition)), $175 for the 11th edition, and the very thorough but NOT for self study Anderson text (Quantitative Methods for Business (with Printed Access Card)) for $250.
QA is a really tough course for people with less math background such as liberal arts, nursing, etc. students going for an MBA, and a bit easier for math and engineering majors in undergrad, because it involves modeling, using a lot of fairly advanced math. Typical QA courses include linear programming (not really linear, and not really programming-- it is about objectives and constraints stated algebraically to find "optimal" graphic or corner solutions to problems such as mixing, profit maximization, or cost minimization); queueing problems; statement analysis; Decision analysis; Project Management; Forecasting; Inventory Control; Logistics; Markov Analysis; Stats; Integer/ nonlinear/ goal programming; regression modeling; simulation; probability, and possibly some econometrics. Most grad (MBA) courses don't go as far as differential equation modeling (frequent models in physics, biosciences, ecology, etc).
The Swift and Render texts are the most popular, and the Anderson text a distant third according to publisher's (QA!) data on course use and sales. Both Swift and Render are frequently zinged in reviews for broken or less useful software and models, but this is an unfair criticism. Swift gives numerous (although London oriented) model examples, and Render has their own internet models available. The reason both of these criticisms are unfair is that there are numerous plug ins for Excel that do all the analysis, statistics, programming solutions, etc. you will need regardless of which text you use. The Library Picks team chose Render as the top pick, but due to expense, if you're doing self study, Swift is also a good bet.
If the included websites, plug ins, templates and downloads aren't working for you from a software/ modeling viewpoint, here is a brief list of outstanding Excel options that will do the same thing, many for free:
-- Statistical Analysis: Microsoft Excel 2010
-- Business Analysis: Microsoft Excel 2010 (MrExcel Library)
-- Predictive Analytics: Microsoft Excel
-- Microsoft Excel 2010: Data Analysis and Business Modeling
-- Charts and Graphs: Microsoft Excel 2010 (MrExcel Library)
These will take care of the problems metioned by some reviewers that it is hard to stay up to date on models. In particular, Microsoft has now migrated their SQL server business analysis package to a new language called DAX in the FREE Excel plug in PowerPivot. These plug ins, many free on the web, will work perfectly with the examples in Swift and Render so you don't have to sweat the included QA software if it crashes.
One caveat: many reviews complain about QA software with "bugs" when in fact it is the reviewer's computer at fault. To run modern QA programs with lots of modeling, you need a modern dual core processor with at LEAST 8 gig of ram, preferably 12 or 16. The reason for this is that with pipelining, the old "math coprocessor" hardware has given way to sharing between CPU and GPU for floating point, and recent software-- even SPSS -- will crash older machines or appear to be buggy. Excel with a plug in also is a great answer to this, because you can get away with much less power if your machine is already doing well with Excel. PowerPivot is intensive, but only if you have huge amounts of data. The typical mixing problem is no problem even with a computer that's say, post 2009.
This book was especially useless. There were no data sets to practice what they were taking about. I had a lot of what they were talking about in college, but it didn't allow me to practice anything, so to me it was worthless.
If you work in an accounting department and use excel, this gives you useful step by step guidance to build useful spreadsheets. It explains the concept of what is to be done, then shows you how to do it in excel. I am a CPA and found it had helpful information. I read it on the train, on my phone's kindle application. Good for accountants, controllers, even CFOs could learn from it. Builds your knowledge in logical, digestible increments. I have taught at university level, and would use this as a course text.
This book is a must-have if you want to learn to use Excel more effectively and how to apply it to common business problems. I got this book because I'm planning to take the Excel Expert exam soon and found that when I took the Excel specialist exam a few months ago that I did not have enough "real life" experience with using excel. The Study Guides for MOS are good at telling you what you need to know and where to find a button for it, but I found it lacking in real business examples - especially with regard to auditing/fixing complex formulas and functions.
This book is so well written that even if you are a complete beginner to business concepts and Excel you will be able to follow. At the same time it may also appeal to more advanced Excel users and people with a broad understanding of accounting concepts.
I really cannot recommend this book enough. It is one of the best technical manuals I have ever used.
My only criticism is that it was not obvious to find where to download the practice workbooks for download that accompany the book. This should be made clearer. I could not find a link to where to download the workbooks in the book - only a reference in chapter 9 to the existence of such workbooks. However, it was a lovely surprise to find these practice files. (You can find them on the Que Publishing Website, search for the book and scroll down to below the image of the book and click the downloads tab - it shows the workbooks download link just below.)
This book is different from other Excel books I've read. The usual approach is to explain what Excel can do and how to do it. This unusual approach reverses the process, identifying business problem and processes, then showing how Excel can help to do the job.
There are four sections: Analyzing Financial Statements, Financial Planning and Control, Investment Decisions and Sales and Marketing. Each section takes a business process, explaining it for those not familiar with it, then showing how Excel can help to eliminate work or illustrate information that might not have been evident.
For example, the first section deals with Income Statements, Balance Sheets, Inventories, Cash Flow and Ratios. In each case, the author shows what Excel can do to make your life easier.
The book uses Excel 2010 as its basis, but mentions how a process might be different when using an earlier version of Excel. Actually, very little reference is made to the tabs present in both Excel 2007 and 2010. Rather, the method of preparing the object at hand is the focus.
The Financial Planning and Control section covers Budgeting and Planning in some depth. The Forecasting chapter explains how the various estimation methods available in Excel differ and the situations in which might be used. The author discusses moving average forecasts, regression and smoothing with Excel's functions. He even covers the concept of Box-Jenkins methods, although the subject is too extensive to cover in this book.
Another interesting chapter is Measuring Quality, which delves into the subject of sampling using various statistical methods.
Statistics comes up again in the Making Investment Decision Under Uncertain Conditions. Here the author covers using standard deviation, confidence intervals and regression analysis.
The book is filled with screen shots of Excel applying the ideas in the text. This gives you a good idea of how to apply the ideas to your own work.
The book includes a helpful glossary and a useful index.
This is a great book for one in business who is familiar with Excel and wants to use it to improve the company's analysis and operations.
Product Details :
Paperback: 528 pages
Publisher: Que Publishing; 1 edition (June 19, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0789743175
ISBN-13: 978-0789743176
Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 1.1 x 9.1 inches
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